On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence commendably reaffirmed the United States’ solidarity with the long-suffering people of Venezuela. He called on the other nations of the Western hemisphere to do the same at a meeting Tuesday of the Organization of American States by voting “to expel the Maduro dictatorship” from that body.

In the event, a sufficient number of the OAS membership agreed to a resolution that clears the way for the ultimate expulsion of Nicholas Madura’s despotic Venezuelan regime, but not enough actually to do it.

Mr. Pence promised American leadership to end the escalating humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and the exodus it is precipitating, with destabilizing effects across the region. That leadership must now take the form of a decisive U.S. embargo on oil purchases from Venezuela and on the sale of gasoline to Maduro and his thugocracy.